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October 28, 2007

I've been emailing with Terri about how we are having trouble concentrating on anything. It's all because of the excitement of going to Houston Tuesday. I just hope I can concentrate on work tomorrow because I have a LONG to-do list there before I can leave.

I finally decided that I could get the Chinese Coins QOV done - the remaining tasks didn't require any decisions or thought! So, here it is done. I really like it and I'm glad that I decided to start another in blues and browns.

The finished size is about 65 x 89. I plan to make the next one a little shorter - about 80".

Here's a close-up of the back showing the quilting in the sashing. The backing fabric is one of my hand-dyed fabrics and I really like the result.

I cut the leftover backing fabric into 2" strips and have enough for the center strip for another string quilt like the Heartstrings quilts. If anyone would like to have these strips (already cut) leave me a comment. First come, first served! (I already have another set to do one myself and don't think I would get this one done anytime soon.)

Last night I made 2 pillowcases for both QOV quilts that are done. Here they are ready to pack and ship when I return from Houston! Did I tell you that I'm going to the Houston Quilt Festival with my Mom?? I'm really looking forward to it, in case you were wondering.

October 21, 2007

Today was yet another great sewing day and a beautiful weather day on top of that. I did some more quilting on the Chinese Coins QOV quilt. It's officially half quilted now. I spent most of the day, however, on the pink and brown Churns Dash quilt blocks. I now have 18 of 30 done and here's a photo of them up on the design wall. I love how this is turning out and have decided that I will work on this to be a show quilt and I've started to think about quilting options. It will still be Kim's quilt, she just won't actually get it anytime soon!

Sewing a 1/4" seam - it's not about the 1/4"

I make a lot of quilts with quick piecing methods - like the foundation piecing that I used in the Chinese Coins quilt. But in the recent Snails Trails (here, here and here) and this quilt I have been concentrating on more accurate cutting and piecing. My favorite resource for learning better piecing skills is Mastering Precision Piecing by Sally Collins. I thought I'd share a couple of tips that I am using in this quilt.

1. Seam Allowance - I did a lot of experimenting on my machines with 1/4" seam allowances. I quickly learned that it's really not about the actual 1/4" seam - it's about the EFFECT of whatever seam I sewed - thread and fabric have a lot to do with the actual effective width of the seam allowance. Garment sewers deal with "turn of the cloth" all of the time and know that a thicker fabric will have a bigger turn of the cloth impact than a fine fabric. For quilters (well, for this quilter), I have found that there is a fabric effect (there are different thicknesses/weights) even in cotton fabrics but there is a bigger effect from the thread. A thicker (heavier weight) thread will effectively create a wider seam allowance than a thinner thread. When you press that seam allowance to one side the top fabric has a deeper fold to fold over a thicker thread. A lot of teachers use this as the excuse to recommend special fine weight threads (Aurafil 60 wt, Masterpiece, Mettler Fine Embroidery). I have some of these threads but I also have some other threads that I refuse to toss out. I use the thread that best matches/blends with the project fabrics. When I start sewing a new quilt I test out my effective 1/4" seam allowance on the fabrics in the quilt and using the project thread.

2. Starch - Any time I am cutting fabric that will have pieces with bias edges (half square triangles) I starch the fabric before cutting. I use a homemade starch of 3 teaspoons of cornstarch dissolved in 1 cup of cold water. I spray the starch liberally over the fabric and let it soak in for a bit before ironing. Letting the starch absorb into the fabric eliminates the problem of the starch flaking off the fabric.

3. Measure at every step - As much as I am careful about my cutting and pressing, the blocks can get out of square. I measure and trim after EVERY seam. Even on this HST block I trimmed off a tiny sliver to square it up. It may not seem like much but over the whole width of the quilt this could make a big difference. Imagine a 1/32" difference on every piece might make a 1/8" difference on this block and that would set the whole quilt width to be off 3/4".

4. When I find that I have cut a piece a little short (even just a thread or two), as I did in the cross piece of this block, I create a template to help me absorb the mistake as I piece the block. In this example, the HST block is 3 1/2" square and the bar block is 4 1/2" x 3 1/2". I discovered that I had cut some of the bar pieces just a hair short of 4 1/2. I created this little template by drawing a 3 1/2" square and another mark at 1" to the left. I placed the HST block in the square, right side up and them placed the bar block on top (right side down) aligning the block on the 4 1/2" mark on the LEFT. You can see that there is a sliver of the HST block showing in the seam allowance. By aligning to the finished size I am able to absorb my mistake in the seam allowance. Does that make sense?

And that's how I get these pretty points!

I'll be out of town for a few days on a business trip so no more sewing until next weekend. I hope I can get these and the quilting on the Chinese Coins quilt done next weekend before I pack for Houston! I also still have to plan a border for this quilt.

October 20, 2007

What a great day - a whole day of uninterrupted sewing! The activities of the last few weeks have impaired my sewing so it was nice to get back in the sewing room and have the whole house to myself. Chris was out dove hunting all day. Doesn't it just change your whole attitude to have some quality sewing time? I could feel my blood pressure dropping all day! The best thing is that I'll have another big sewing day tomorrow! The only chore that I do on Sunday is laundry and with 2 people, it's not much.

I did exactly what I planned today. This morning I sewed pink and brown Churn Dash blocks while I finished listening to The Book of Fate. It took me several attempts to get into this book but I was hooked by the end of the 2nd CD and didn't stop sewing until the book was done. I'll post the progress on the Churn Dash blocks tomorrow.

The other thing that I did this morning was wash this big bag o' fabric! This is the same fabric that I used when I first set up my dye space - 404 bleached muslin). I bought it at my local Hancock's because it was cheap (1.99/yard). After testing lots of other fabrics I determined that I like this fabric more than the expensive Kona or Pimatex. I stopped by Hancock's Friday and bought the whole bolt (43 yards). Because I bought the bolt I got 10% off! This isn't a PFD fabric so it had to be scoured. I cut it into 4 big pieces and washed and dried it. Now it's ready for dyeing!

I have a question for any dyers out there. I used Dawn dish detergent (as many of the books and web sites recommend) to wash the fabric. Is there any reason that my normal laundry detergent wouldn't work? The Dawn has fragrance in it and it set off a nice asthma attack. I suppose I may have to revert to Synthrapol if I can't use laundry detergent. I didn't think the fragrance from a little Dawn would bother me but I was wrong!

This afternoon and evening I worked on quilting the first Chinese Coins QOV quilt. I actually did SID on this one around all of the green sashing. I love the look of SID and I knew that I needed more practice. It actually went pretty quickly. I started quilting the border, sashing and blocks. I am using a "fern" meander for the coin strips and the sashing. This is intended to mimic underwater foliage where the fish hide. The green sashing is done with swirls the way that the water swirls when there is a big fish feeding frenzy. I know, it's weak, but I like how it's looking anyway! You can see it best in the photo of the back on the left. I am using Bottom Line thread top and bottom and it's quilting beautifully.

Recently the Q4P list was cleaned up to remove blogs with broken links or low/no activity. I had not checked the ring in a while so I did a tour today about found a lot of new blogs to add to my reader (egads! I have 330 blogs in my reader now!). If you haven't surfed the ring (Q4P or Quilt Studio), give it a try, there are some cool blogs out there!

I'm finishing off the day watching the Virginia/Maryland. Chris went to Virginia so I will root for them when they are not playing getting beaten by Virginia Tech. It's not looking too good for the 'Hoos so far. Guess I'll have plenty of time to work on my little powder room rug tonight!

October 18, 2007

I feel like I haven't been sewing in weeks and that might actually be the case. Last weekend was about tie dyeing and before that was about allergies and before that it was the surgery stuff. So I am so excited to come home tomorrow night and have a real sewing weekend again! I decided to get a jump start tonight and get things going. It would be really nice to finish a project before I go to Houston and buy stuff that I don't need for 5 new projects.

October 16, 2007

I can't leave the day with only a non-sewing post so here are a few postcards that I have received lately. These are from two different swaps. The first two are from the "New Beginnings" swap at MQResource. If you are a machine quilter and aren't a member of MQResouce, check it out! It's a great on-line community for machine quilters. The last 2 cards are from the "Great Outdoors" swap on Stitcher's Guild, a great general sewing forum.